


Time is not always our friend

by 3White_Mage3



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: M/M, don't know what the right tag is for lots of hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 17:22:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1193430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3White_Mage3/pseuds/3White_Mage3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Phil had had a wonderful life together, something neither had dared hope for nor dreamt of. And yet, as Phil stood here tonight staring out across the Altantic, it wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time is not always our friend

**Author's Note:**

> I trust everyone understands that I have no designs on either Stevie Nicks's rights nor on Marvel's property. I get nothing out of this except possibly a bit of soul cleansing and perhaps a few kinds words from the people who hopefully read this or, at a minimum, some constructive criticism so that I can do better next time.

Phil wouldn't change a minute of it.

Not even now, standing on the rocky shore of his and Clint's farm in Maine, waves crashing against the shore as one of Clint's beloved late-Fall storms swept in from across the Atlantic as the sun began to set behind him.

Okay, maybe he'd roll back the clock so that they had acknowledged what Clint and he had both known was there all those years before they actually did anything about it. All those years for which he would now give anything if only he could take from then and add to now so as to provide a bit more time for them to be together.

Leaning on his cane amidst the heightening spray from the waves, Phil knew that that thought was selfish of him. Anyway even if it were possible it could only serve to grab a bit more time with Clint. A bit more. Nothing would change in the end. Yet he still couldn't stop himself from thinking fervently how he'd give anything. Anything worthwhile.

Because what was anything really worth without Clint by his side?

Phil couldn't think of a thing that mattered in that context. He had been through it already over the last several days since Clint had died. 

Over and over again in his head he wrangled the heavens, wrestled demons or gods, begged at the altar of any deity ever conceived, offered to sell any piece left of himself worth selling. Anything. For five more minutes with his Hawk in his arms.

_And can I sail through the changing ocean tides_

_Can I handle the seasons of my life?_

_Oh oh I don't know, oh I don't know_

But now, what now?

"What now" was to wait until his own time came so that he could shed his own earthly shell and rocket into the night sky like he knew Clint had done when the disease couldn't be fought any longer, when there was simply no energy left for his partner to fight with. When they had agreed that it was time for the archer who had fought so long and so hard against so many adversaries to let go. And to go.

Their closest friends - Natasha especially, Maria Hill and Jasper (Nick had long preceded Clint), Thor, the Captain, and Tony, Bruce and their children - had "come by" when Phil summoned them, although Clint was the first to state that it was okay to say they were coming to say good bye.

He hated how everyone had told him how lucky he was to have had the years together. Did it make him a complete ass to think none of that mattered now?

_Well, I've been afraid of changing 'Cause I've built my life around you_

_But time makes you bolder_

_Children get older I'm getting older too_

_Yes I'm getting older too._

Now it was Phil's duty -- he had lived his life by that credo of duty until the point it was now almost a curse -- to live until such time as he could let go. Go so that his being could rejoin that incomparably bright spark, that beautiful flame, which had been his to hold and to love for more than 40 years.

Nearly half a century with the love of his life, years which still felt far too short a time even now.

T _ook this love and I took it down_

_Climbed a mountain and I turned around_

_And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills_

_Till the landslide brought me down_

The former senior agent knew his time should have come before Clint's. What's the use of being the older partner if you're the one left behind?

Pulling himself together, shuffling around on his good leg, and reaching down to pat Lucky V on the head and saying "come on, boy", Phil started back to the farmhouse which now seemed too dark without the spark which had been his longtime companion, his one and only love.

_So, take this love, take it down_

_Oh if you climb a mountain and you turn around_

_If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills_

_Well the landslide will bring you down, down_

Well, the landslide had come and now it had gone. Phil knew he was going to see Clint's reflection everywhere until the time came for him to rejoin him.


End file.
